‘The Dean and I’ was the fourth and third-poorest selling single from the album and such gets short shrift from many 10cc reviewers. However lesser single as it might be compared to ‘Rubber Bullets’ and co let me put that in context – before Wings’ ‘Band On the Run’ broke the mold you almost never had more than two singles released from an album anyway. ‘The Dean and I’ is evidence of a hot talent, a collection of musical hooks and playful lyrics most commercial singles would die for – the fact that there are two even catchier singles on the record simply shows how full of hooks the others are (more hooks than a pair of curtains or a Peter Pan movie, that’s what I say). What ‘The Dean and I’ is missing is any kind of cohesion or any real break in between the long list of jokes and wordplay. The song starts with a catchy but also quite scary chanting chorus of ‘humdrum days and humdrum ways’ which, as far as I can tell, has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the song (and is cut for the single mix, which is otherwise the same as the album one). When it becomes a song proper, the song finds a parent telling his children how he met their mother at a prom ball. Alas, she was the daughter of a respected college dean who didn’t want his daughter to marry such a lowlife but somehow he worked hard, got a good job and won her over. As if to prove him wrong, this song is full of witty quick-stepping lyrics and lots of intellectual references (such as Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’), although the narrator still lets his humble birth show through, with his daughter ‘doing what she should’na ought to’ and memorably rhyming the word ‘now’ with the pained cry ‘eeeaeeaaaow’ as, spurned in love, the narrator throws himself off a train. Though many fans see the mention of a ‘Dean’ and assume this is a religious song, it’s really one about class, of how the only way to make money when you’re poor is to marry into it and you can only do that out of the hard work the rich won’t do for themselves. It is, in many ways, the most art school Godley-Crème song until the 1980s. There are some great lines in it, such as the student narrator enjoying a ‘gradual graduation’ in his love life alongside his studies, but somehow these characters feel like ciphers compared to other 10cc songs and oddly more lines miss than they hit (elevators? Heart? Awol?) Meanwhile this song’s ginormous crib is the Phil Spector song ‘And Then I Kissed Her’ which is recycled wholesale for the middle eight, immediately undercut by the best passage as Kevin gives us the truth behind this innocence portrayal of love (‘Now the paint is peeling!’ All that hard work to win over a girl from a good home – and it’s taken so long the narrator has forgotten why he ever wanted to date her in the first place. Circumstances have improved by the end, though, as with most 10cc spoofs when an unexpected bucket load of money comes the narrator’s way and the Dean is suddenly pleased to know him, showing again just how artificial we’re meant to think these songs are. Snobbery, lyrics dominating the fine song’s tune and words quite unlike any other song of the day, this is surely where Godley and Creme start their template for weird and wacky songs. Tiring, but fun. Eric didn't like it though (he calls it 'too South Pacific' in a 1981 interview on Multi-Colored Swap Shop!' (not that this prevents him from playing some clever Hawaiian-grunge guitar). There’s only one reason this mess of images and puns and bad rhymes works and that’s Lol’s infectious and colorful vocal, so spot on for the times, the guitarist having such fun it seems churlish to think anything bad about this track.
lyrics
Hum drum days
And a hum drum ways
Hey kids, let me tell you how I met your mom
We were dancin' and romancin' at the Senior Prom
It was no infatuation
But a gradual graduation
From a boy to a man
Let me tell you while I can
The soda pop came free
Hey Sis, one kiss, and I was heaven bound
Now who would have guessed Milton's paradise lost could be found
But in the eyes of the Dean, his daughter
Was doin' what she shouldn'a ought to
But a man's gotta do
What a man's gotta do
The consequence should be
Church bells, three swells
The Dean, his daughter and me
They were dating in the park
They were smooching in the dark
Of a doorway for two
She whispered "I love you"
Ooh, you know I never felt this way before
Ooh, you know the elevator in my heart
Has gone haywire, haywire, haywire, haywire
And then I kissed her
And when I kissed her
It's a wonderful world
When you're rolling in kisses
Now, the paint is peeling
(Hum drum days and hum drum ways)
Now, and when the chips are down
(Hum drum days and hum drum ways)
Now, you kinda lose all feeling
(Hum drum days and hum drum ways)
Now, your head goes round and round
(Hum drum days and hum drum ways)
Round and round and round and round and round
I'm throwing myself off this train
Hum drum days
And a hum drum ways
Hum drum days, he's got
Hum drum ways, oh boy
Hey, you know I'm really earning now
My ship came in with a cargo of dollars
My name's lit up on the prow
It's a wonderful world
When you're rolling in dollars
Now!
This is a musical tribute to 10cc, both originals and remakes. Here is the story about the original line-up from the
original band: 10cc are an English rock band founded in Stockport, England, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1970s. The band initially consisted of four musicians – Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme....more
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